Madame_mina

Wow this is an astringent floral- perfume counter almost like Elizabeth Taylor ‘white diamonds’. I was hoping for more lilac, but it is not distinguishable. The harsh liquid alcohol-flower dies down as it warms up and remains a warm/“hot” floral scent. My mother would love this scent but it is not for me. I took a gamble as i am not normally a super floral-gal, but was seduced by the promise of spring lilacs. This has a long wear and throw. From afar (like if I wave my arms around and smell the air), it smells like fresh cut stems of a bouquet (the green watery scent of stems), but closer to the body is where the hot-flowers are.

In the bottle and first application there’s the slight earthiness and grounding of patchouli and other herbs but with almost a hint of butterscotch? . But as it warms up it immediately turned into Axe body spray male cologne with a sharp astringent aquatic scent. I hate it!

Ooo! I’ve been wearing this for a few days now. Some sort of periwinkle opalescent/moonstone-colored floral scent. Black plum, currant and VIOLET to me. Not headachy floral, but a cooling grounding, clean scent. This is a more robust version of a perfume I used to buy off Etsy from Midnight Gypsy Alchemy- raven spells. Like almost identical. i don’t think this review is particularly helpful as this really is an ethereal violet scent. Do I like floral perfumes now??

Oh this one is super cool and I like the way it morphs. I am NOT a gourmand but this one is pretty great. It is juicy— when I applied it it was immediately like a spiced grape popsicle. Not sticky, but like very juicy (too sweet to be a wine IMO). The frankincense comes out as it warms up and rose takes a super back seat and just provides a softness to the underlying sinister scent. It’s so weird, there are two currents here- a superficial sweet and goofy scent, and a brooding burning dark red scent. Two at once? edited to add it did turn slightly baby powder on me. Dang, I wasn’t expecting that.

Woah!! This isn’t an IDEA of viscera, this is straight up operating room. Sickening bandaid from the bottle, but I dared apply it to the skin with the hopes that the sterile operating room ointments and band aid would disappear. Thankfully on application the bandaid smell falls back and a spicier blood —and ozone mint (!?) come to the fore. Then even that dies down to spicy bloody guts with the after-taste/smell of bandaid. This has so many bizarre layers to it. The bandaid is gross straight from the bottle, and thankfully doesn’t linger— at least not in a gross ka-pow sort of way as it does just sniffing the bottle. What lingers on the skin is oddly addicting to sniff as it is spicy and sharp - in the way carnations are spicy and sharp. this is one of the very few —if one of the only—that truly disgusts me sniffing the bottle but actually turns pleasant when worn. What a trip!!! It goes::: going in for surgery, being rubbed down in iodine and smelling each metal instrument as it’s unwrapped from the package, being cut open from stem to stern, having some deranged doctor play with my entrails, and perhaps even dying while on the operating table— and yet not even mad about it! There is something warm in there that offsets the sterile operating room, and is oddly comforting. what a trip!

Smells like making/burning caramel corn on the stove then morph into like an old candle drawer that you open up and it’s all odds and ends of weird wax candles. Absolutely nothing like the description.

So disappointed! This was like a very strong men’s cologne almost like a pine-scented Axe body spray. Reminds me of Gaueko which was also a deeply masculine, crisp scent. Maybe it’s my skin chemistry— I tried to give this a go, but the scent from the bottle only seemed to ramp up the cologne after-shave astringency to me after application. I did not get any incense smoke at all. Hard pass.

This is so weird. For me all the scents don’t meld together but shout loudly at first about their individualism. The vanilla bean smells too much like suntan lotion, and kind of sours all the other scents. Cardamom warms up with time, and as it mellows it’s definitely like a milky vanilla chai (dirty chai? Coffee doesn’t seem as foreword as the vanilla and cardamom). I do also get the chocolate notes as was said above.

Exactly as described. Blood is thick and spicy and the pine resin starts off acrid like pinesol cleaner but immediately softens down to crisp pine needles and it works. Blood is one of my top favorite scents, and almost all my incenses i burn at home are pine or other coniferous/resinous trees, so this works great for me. i am editing a few hours later to say the throw is pretty weak for a scent that comes off so strong at first. Now I only smell it if I hold my wrist up to my nose. Compared to Blood, which I think had a longer and farther throw, this stays pretty close to the skin

Juicy! My mouth started watering and I normally hate citrus perfumes, but this was too delectable to pass up. Grapefruit, kumquat… but the juiciness dries down pretty quickly to let dry florals in… and then…. Smells like tennis balls. I like that kind of weird floral rubber scent of fresh tennis balls, so it works… it’s juicy grapefruit with a side of tennis balls. 🤷🏻‍♀️

Ah! My first time being the first! i had to have this, as two of the scents are top scents of mine (Blood!). This is exactly as I imagined. I like Shanghai because of the honeysuckle and less for the lemon verbena. This was a wild ride of emotions for me. first whiff out of the bottle- BLOOD. Then cinnamon clove. Yum! after applying- the Blood is no longer a punch in the face but stays closer to the skin. The lemon verbena and florals of Shanghai come out and are what is wafting around me— with slight edges of cinnamon blood. It’s such a bizarre scent. It reminds me of a distinct time in the 90’s at Saint Sabrina’s parlour in purgatory in Minneapolis- old incense and a ton of goth candles along with clove cigarette smoke coming in the front doorway mixing together. And his was back when I was using some lemon verbena The Body Shoppe shampoo and so that was an underlying scent back then. Genius. Not a very high tech review, but a worthwhile mix if you love the bases. edited after swearing in this from shoveling my driveway from 1’ snowfall: this turned up straight old lady on me. The cinnamon and clove are still there, but my body ramped up the honeysuckle verbena- made all the more astringent by the copal. Still a weird mishmash of scents, but now less like 90s goth store and more like 80s bathroom potpourri. Booo

I absolutely love this one. Cold steel bloodbath In the back room of a 90’s headshop... anyone remember those skeleteens/brainalizer sodas (brainwash, love potion #69)? Juicy blood soda with the feeling of spice but not actually spicy (The scent equivalent of capsaicin feeling but no spicy taste) . Harsh sharp steel and blood in the bottle, and the headshop comes out as it warms on the skin.